September 9, 2025
(The Guardian) – Kirsten Smith was 19 when she first tried heroin; within a few years she was in prison. She says she willingly made bad choices and wants society to stop treating addiction as a disease Smith belongs to … Read More
September 8, 2025
(New York Times) – Some 90,000 cases of Parkinson’s are now diagnosed each year in the United States, about one every six minutes on average. It is the world’s fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease, causing tremors, stiffness and balance problems. It is … Read More
September 8, 2025
(Wired) – Research into whether drugs like ayahuasca can mitigate the effects of traumatic brain injury is in its infancy. Pro athletes like the Buffalo Bills’ Jordan Poyer are forging ahead anyway. Among Psychedelic Science 2025’s keynote talks was “Healing … Read More
September 5, 2025
(AP) – LSD reduced symptoms of anxiety in a midstage study published Thursday, paving the way for additional testing and possible medical approval of a psychedelic drug that has been banned in the U.S. for more than a half century. … Read More
September 5, 2025
(Wired) – The brain implant company cofounded by Elon Musk filed to trademark the product names Telepathy and Telekinesis. But it turns out that another person had already filed to trademark those names. The United States Patent and Trademark Office … Read More
September 2, 2025
(Reuters) – The World Health Organization has run out of critical medical supplies in Gaza that it needs to treat a surge in cases of a rare paralysis-causing syndrome in the Palestinian enclave, the U.N. agency said on Friday. There … Read More
September 2, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – More Americans are testing positive for fentanyl use in randomized workplace drug tests, highlighting a persistent challenge for employers. The positive rate for urine tests indicating the presence of the synthetic opioid fentanyl was 1.13% in … Read More
August 28, 2025
(Wired) – A new policy document outlines China’s plan to create an internationally competitive BCI industry within five years, and proposes developing devices for both health and consumer uses. Jointly authored in July by seven departments within the Chinese government—including … Read More
August 26, 2025
(Nature) – RFK Jr has vowed to find out what’s responsible, but scientists say he is ignoring answers from decades of research. There are several reasons to think that a rise in diagnoses explains a large part of this trend. … Read More
August 22, 2025
(Techradar) – GPT‑5 Pro impresses with its complex, layered response to prompts. The crown jewel of the GPT-5 rollout this month even made OpenAI CEO Sam Altman nervous with some of its responses. But you shouldn’t confuse brilliant algorithmic models … Read More
August 22, 2025
(Nature) – Study challenges the textbook idea that the brain region that processes body sensations reorganizes itself after limb amputation. A brain-imaging study of people with amputated arms has upended a long-standing belief: that the brain’s map of the body … Read More
August 20, 2025
(The Jerusalem Post) – Tel Aviv University announced on Wednesday that the surgery will take place in Israel, marking a historic milestone in regenerative medicine. Israel is preparing to perform the world’s first-ever human spinal cord implant using a patient’s … Read More
August 19, 2025
(NPR) – “Without it, he will have a devastating end of life,” says Dr. Marco Lee, past president of the Western Neurosurgical Society. “When your breathing starts to go, it’s like this constant feeling of drowning.” That would have been … Read More
August 18, 2025
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry (vol. 22, no. 2, 2025) is available online by subscription only. Articles include:
August 15, 2025
(NBC News) – His doctors recommended that he start an intensive rehab program within days of his stroke. “Almost immediately they started telling me that the No. 1 most important thing now is to as quickly as possible get me … Read More
August 15, 2025
(Nature) – Stunning results in mice herald gene-editing advances for neurological diseases. Scientists are closing in on the ability to apply genome editing to a formidable new target: the human brain. In the past two years, a spate of technological … Read More
August 15, 2025
(Straight Arrow News) – Researchers have highlighted three emerging types of AI psychosis. The first is “messianic missions,” where people believe they’ve uncovered some kind of truth about the world. The second is “God-like AI,” where people believe the chatbot … Read More
August 15, 2025
(New York Times) – A guitarist in a death metal band was one of several people who found that personalized deep brain stimulation eased their pain and helped them reduce pain medication. Chronic pain, defined as lasting at least three … Read More
August 14, 2025
(Reuters) – A cognitively impaired New Jersey man grew infatuated with “Big sis Billie,” a Facebook Messenger chatbot with a young woman’s persona. His fatal attraction puts a spotlight on Meta’s AI guidelines, which have let chatbots make things up … Read More
August 13, 2025
(BBC) – Drug treatment can help people newly diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) to reduce their risk of substance misuse, suicidal behaviour, transport accidents and criminality, a study suggests. These issues are linked to common ADHD symptoms such … Read More
August 13, 2025
(Futurism) – Our brains, the researcher explains, work on a predictive basis: we effectively make an educated guess about what reality will be, then conduct a reality check. Finally, our brains update our beliefs accordingly. “Psychosis happens when the ‘update,’ … Read More
August 13, 2025
(IE via MSN) – The already fierce rivalry between tech titans Sam Altman and Elon Musk is escalating to a new frontier: the human brain. A story from the Financial Times (FT) reports that Altman’s OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, … Read More
August 12, 2025
(Wired) – The Cleveland Clinic and startup Piramidal are developing an AI model trained on brain wave data to monitor intensive care patients. The Cleveland Clinic is partnering with San Francisco–based startup Piramidal to develop a large-scale AI model that … Read More
August 11, 2025
(New York Times) – As products like weed gummies proliferate, more children and teens are suffering symptoms including seizures and life-threatening breathing problems. As legalization and commercialization of cannabis have spread across the United States, making marijuana edibles more readily … Read More
August 7, 2025
(NBC News) – Gefen and her colleagues at the Mesulam Center have autopsied nearly 80 SuperAger brains and compared them to those of their “neurotypical” peers. They focused on two indicators of Alzheimer’s: protein buildups in the brain called amyloid … Read More
